Surprised no one really talking about it. Manga2.5 is trying to make a new way to view manga and I think that it's pretty interesting. They take the original Manga and take out the word bubbles and other text and color in the characters. They then get voice actors to read the lines. Its kinda like watching an anime but the artwork is from the manga. I don't think action genre manga would work but I just watched HADIGIRL and it was pretty good. They got some pretty known voice actors like Aya Hirano for example. I think it's a interesting way to view manga. Granted its kinda pricey by Japanese yen standards but its a pretty good deal by the American dollars. For Hadi girl the first 10 chapters are used which is like vol 1 and some of 2 for 13 bucks. What do you guys think?

It's not an entirely new idea. There's a motion comic for Black Jack (though I've not seen it). With American comics I've seen a motion comic version of Watchmen.

I admit that when watching anime I'm not as picky as some about the actual animation (it's the story and characters that carry it along), but I guess I'd just as soon read a comic or manga as see a motion comic version.

But I think it's a nice option to have--especially if the voice acting is good and brings me into the story rather than having the opposite effect.

ETA: I could be mistaken about Black Jack. I thought I'd even watched a bit, but googling doesn't turn anything up, so maybe it was something else.

I have seen motion comics before, but as you stated, I have never seen them for manga. I just discovered Hadigirl on Amazon and saw a littl bit of it and loved it.

Personally, I love to see beautiful anime in motion, however, seeing the manga art come to life the way it did was pretty refreshing as well. Almost reminds me of certain Western children shows I grew up with...tv programs showing the books with words and having character voices but of course more beautiful and subtitled :)

Not to mention, with the cost of anime production, I am sure its cheaper...so I would not mind seeing and paying for this to get some Japanese fixes.

There's a relatively new company called Madefire that's making motion comics. They're a bit different in that speech bubbles are preserved and voice actors aren't used, but certain elements on the page are animated and everything has sound effects and music. I don't think they have a lot of manga yet, mostly western comics, but I think they're about to release their tool on deviantART so anyone in the community can make their own comics.

Idk, it looks interesting, and I like the reading experience a lot. Anyone else ever used it?

I watched the first episode of Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru (And Yet the Town Moves), and I did not enjoy the experience. I found the way the frames moved in and out so quickly to be visually jarring. I'm not sure I'll be able to get used to that.

(I've also found I don't like "guided view" when reading digital manga. It's less jarring than the Manga 2.5 experience, because I control when the next frame shows up, and it happens more sedately, but I still prefer to look at a single page of several frames rather than frame-at-a-time.)

I did like hearing the voices, and the small amounts of motion that were sometimes added within the frames, though.

lorreenwrote: I watched the first episode of Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru (And Yet the Town Moves), and I did not enjoy the experience. I found the way the frames moved in and out so quickly to be visually jarring. I'm not sure I'll be able to get used to that.

I actually liked it. Of course, I was watching it on my Roku, where reading Manga does not seem to be an option.

(I've also found I don't like "guided view" when reading digital manga. It's less jarring than the Manga 2.5 experience, because I control when the next frame shows up, and it happens more sedately, but I still prefer to look at a single page of several frames rather than frame-at-a-time.)

I quite like the guided view, though that is in large part because manual pan and zoom is so clumsy the way its normally done ... if manual pan and zoom were more elegant, I might prefer that, but if wishes were horses then beggers would ride.

A single page is not really an option for me on either my netbook or my 7" Android tablet (Nook HD), and I'm not about to site at the laptop computer downstairs reading online manga.

I did like hearing the voices, and the small amounts of motion that were sometimes added within the frames, though.

legendofzekewrote: There's a relatively new company called Madefire that's making motion comics. They're a bit different in that speech bubbles are preserved and voice actors aren't used, but certain elements on the page are animated and everything has sound effects and music. I don't think they have a lot of manga yet, mostly western comics, but I think they're about to release their tool on deviantART so anyone in the community can make their own comics.

The voice acting is my favorite part of it, watching it on the Roku ... the only "animated" addition I really liked was the highlighting of which text bubble goes with which voice. Indeed, if they did it with voice acting with just the guided view type frame to frame slides, without any colorizing or added semi-animation, but included those voice balloon highlights to go with the slide, I'd probably like that about as much.

was okay, but i read manga much faster, as i'm sure many others do. I coulda gone through 3-4 chapters by the time one episode of the cafe one was finished. Voice acting is nice, but i think it's better suited for full animation.

Watched ep 1 of Hadigirl. That was done very differently, and I liked it. No frames zapping in and out like bad PowerPoint transitions. It's good to know that the way they adapted And Yet the Town Moves was not necessarily typical.

I'll watch the rest of Hadigirl and am open to watching more Motion Comics/Manga 2.5 stuff. Probably won't bother with the rest of And Yet the Town Moves though.